


joint ventures

by altilis



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-19
Updated: 2016-01-19
Packaged: 2018-05-14 21:15:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5759083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/altilis/pseuds/altilis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phasma sees a boy who could become more (if he doesn’t freeze to death).</p>
            </blockquote>





	joint ventures

**Author's Note:**

> MUCH THANKS to [sullacat](http://sullacat.tumblr.com), [kinderjedi](http://kinderjedi.tumblr.com), [barefootchaos](http://barefootchaos.tumblr.com) for proofreadinging this! ♥

The first time Phasma sees Hux, he’s a skinny little lieutenant trailing after his superior, and she’s just a stormtrooper sergeant, Division 56. He doesn’t know she’s there in the crowd as the then-general delivers his orders, but she tells him later that he had looked young and frightened, a wide-eyed child no different than the thousands of other low-level officers, and Hux scoffs at her description and the complete truth it encompasses.

“Why did you remember me at all, then?” Hux asks.

“Your hair,” she tells him. “If you had been a woman I would have eaten you out that night.” While this is true - Phasma doesn’t lie to him, she has no use for that game - she doesn’t mention that she knew the name of his father, had heard stories of a sniveling man that didn’t match the dark hunger in Hux’s eyes, and saw a boy chained down by a legacy instead of lifted by it. 

He might have been one such boy among thousands, but something had pulled at her gut to watch him, and her instinct had carried her through conditioning, through first-time combat, all the way to that snowball of a base; she wouldn’t ignore it then.

\--  
\--

Hux really is a pathetic little thing. On her night patrols through the officer’s barracks, she glimpses him standing in the threshold of his room, talking to a peer in only a tight, white undershirt and his trousers. He’s slight and thin, like a boy not quite a man yet.

Phasma wonders how he’s ever going to survive on this snowball.

\--

The taiga where they’re stationed has two seasons: chilly and cold. They’re now in the latter, a blizzard slamming into the base and making operations--difficult. 

She responds to a distress call, running across two snow-covered paths and several icy corridors to come to the makeshift officers barracks for the pencil-pushers. She sprints down the long hallway until she comes to the number on the distress call, and pushes open the door; she sees the young lieutenant standing over a motionless body, nude, knife in hand, the blade dripping blood. His red hair sticks in odd directions. Scratches and bruises marr his pale skin around his hips, his shoulders, the back of his thighs. 

He turns to see her standing in the threshold, and she can see his ribs press against his skin when he twists at the waist (and her first thought is: he needs more rations followed by a core development program). He doesn’t say anything; a muscle in his jaw tightens. Phasma shoulders her rifle.

“You had a disagreement with the Major,” Phasma explains, “And he pulled the knife on you; you reacted accordingly, I’m sure, just like they teach you in that damn Academy.”

Hux stares at her in silent disbelief, his eyes betraying him briefly before he straightens up, nods, and drops the knife onto the cold concrete floor. “Yes, Sergeant, that’s correct.”

“Would you like to get dressed before I report in?” she asks. Hux watches every movement of it as he pulls on his trousers from a heap of clothes on the floor. “Or do you think crying rape would help your inquiry?” 

“Actually,” he threads his belt through and buckles it, “I would prefer you not call this in at all.”

“Lieutenant, there has already been a call from this room - “

“Say we were fucking too loud,” Hux says dismissively, pulling on his undershirt. “And if you’d bring up a speeder to the service entrance.”

“That’s not my place.”

“Then make it yours,” Hux says, curt, as he tugs on his jacket. “Because I will be the Major by the end of the week.”

 

He’s not lying. When Phasma sees him with his new stripes, she remembers how grim and determined he looked that night, bundled in the passenger seat of the speeder with his cheeks flushed from the cold, directing her out into the woods. He’s too young to be giving orders, Phasma thinks, but at least he doesn’t wait for a committee to approve them, first.

\--

Major Hux is a popular man. He drinks often, he plays a tough game of sabacc, pulls a storied three-on-one win in dejarik, he trades barbs and insults all in good fun (until it isn’t).

He still looks like a boy when he takes off his greatcoat in the mess, he’s getting involved with a crowd of officers tasked with organizing topographical surveys. The department goes out into the wilderness for days at a time and come back haggard, bearded, and with most of their fingers and toes. She’s always mildly surprised when he returns and sits down at his group’s table with an extra helping of rations and a tall glass of coffee.

Construction is still slow, no matter how many troops and alien slaves they bring to the planet.

Nobody among the officers has moved up in a while, and Hux above all else is getting restless. Phasma hears this straight from the colonel who she reports to, or more like his secretary, a jittery girl with auburn hair who hates the cold, therefore this job, and talks too much. 

Phasma makes her feel a little warmer a couple nights later, but not before she hears how Hux is on the short list, and is poised to make it shorter. 

She’s walking patrols around the barracks when she sees him standing out in the snow under a dim yellow lamp, smoking a cigarette held between two gloved fingers. He stares up at the stars, barely glancing back when she approaches.

“You’ll ruin your health with those, Major,” she says flatly, and watches him take another drag, his breath and the smoke crystallizing into billowing fog with the exhale.

“It’s a good thing I have you to save me, then,” he drawls, and brings up his hand again; Phasma catches him by the wrist. He stares at her, his mouth a thin line of annoyance.

“I’m sure you know that you have larger problems than crippling yourself with this.” 

“Why do you think I’m out here?”

“Find another outlet.” Her other hand comes up, plucks the cigarette from his hand and tosses it into the snow. “Something indoors. Warmer.”

Hux snorts. “That isn’t an option.”

“Saving that for your assassinations, are you? How about being able to take a life while their guard is already up? You look like you could use the training, sir.”

“I beg your pardon, the Academy - ”

“ - is child’s play,” Phasma interrupts; she has seen enough officers fall to know this is the case, especially if lean, noodle-armed Hux had taken down that man she had found him standing over. “Eight o’clock tomorrow, come watch the troops train on Field C; you may even learn something.”

\--

Hux arrives, eight o’clock sharp, and watches the training exercises from the concrete risers, wrapped in a great coat that’s too big for him and the flaps of his cap pulled down over his ears. He looks like a child, Phasma thinks, but she doesn’t say a word to him until her own troops are dismissed. 

“Do you shoot, sir?” she asks when he comes down to the field and stands by her, watching as two troopers clean up the equipment.

“I do,” Hux says with a nod. “Pistol.”

“How well?”

“Well enough.”

“Are you armed now?” Phasma asks, and watches as Hux reaches into his jacket and pulls out a standard blaster pistols. “Good. If you’ll aim at the target across the field for me. I’m curious.”

Hux aims at the target block, his arm straight and his hand still and fires off a shot; the lights on top flash a great score in green, but not dead center. He lowers his hand.

“Acceptable,” she says, head tilted slightly; she sees Hux scowl out of the corner of her eye. “Again, if you would indulge me.”

Hux takes aim again, raising his arm to be parallel to the ground, and the moment he takes a small breath to steady himself, Phasma swings her arm back and strikes him across the waist, strong enough that he doubles over, gasping for breath, clutching at his torso.

“Why --” He croaks, voice a pinch of what it used to be.

Phasma rests her hand on her hip. “Anyone can shoot when they are at their peak; it is when you are injured that your skill and muscle memory matter, and you can save yourself, or lie there and die. Take another shot, Major.”

Hux barely gets himself to stand straight, the blow likely still spasming, and he takes another shot; the outer rings light up this time, the numbers red and angry.

“You need to work on your stamina,” she tells him, and he calls her something profane in return, coughing hard. Phasma puts her hand on his back behind the shoulder, waiting for his breathing to even out, and says, “Come on. Again.” She steps back as Hux straightens up again, collects himself, focuses on the target. “And consider promoting Lieutenant Vondell off-world.”

Hux pauses, his pistol still aimed as he looks over his shoulder. “Who?”

“Your colonel’s secretary. Keep your eye on the target, Major.” 

\--

His department leaves for a four-week expedition to the opposite side of the equatorial taiga, and that’s the last she hears of him until she sees him standing at the edge of the field, the flaps of his hat framing his bright orange beard, his greatcoat not even buttoned up against the chill.

“Major,” Phasma greets him at the end of the session.

“Sergeant,” Hux replies, his voice a little gruffer, his tone a little shorter.

“How many of you came back?”

“Six.”

“What a waste,” she says, shifting her rifle to her shoulder. “You need to try harder, next time.”

Hux snorts, a smile pulling at the edge of his mouth. “Perhaps. Do you have time for a drink?”

“I don’t drink, sir.”

“Have a water, then.”

 

She has forty-five minutes to spare on this particular day, but she decides to spend it sitting at a small table at the edge of the mess, against a frosted window, listening to this man talk about inept bureaucrats and directionally challenged pilots and broken systems. Then he pauses, looking at her helmet on the table, then her face. “I don’t think I’ve seen your face this close, before.”

“A consequence of my work.”

Hux takes another sip of whiskey from his glass. “I can see how you lured Braven’s secretary into your confidence.”

“Lured?” Phasma laughs. “What are you implying? I don’t have time for the games you play, Major; my purpose on this base is very clear.”

“Well.” Hux pauses, pursing his lips for a moment, then continues: “There are many other officers who would want to know what sort of information crosses a colonel’s desk.”

“Indeed.”

“But you don’t?”

“I spend enough time managing my troops and the orders from inexperienced officers -- you included, don’t think you’re immune -- to bother. Soon, Major, you’ll realize that some nights all you want is to finger a girl until she comes on your hand.”

Hux stares at her, eyes childishly wide and bright, clear green in the light coming off the snow. “I haven’t -- ”

“Perhaps you should take some time to try.” Phasma takes a drink from her glass of water. “I’d invite you, but Aital is a shy girl when she’s naked.”

\--

One evening, she tries to land a strike and Hux retaliates with some new-found agility; she lets out a bark of laughter as she catches his fist and twists him straight into the snow underfoot. “Let’s not forget, Major,” she tells him as he gets back to his feet, “that you’re still a bureaucrat, and I’m a stormtrooper. You won’t win, and you shouldn’t fight me to begin with.”

“Noted,” he says, brushing off the snow from his shoulders. 

\--

A few months in, he doesn’t visit the field nor watch the training. When Phasma doesn’t see him among his regular ilk in the mess, she doesn’t get worried, per se, but she watches and tries to hear if anything unusual has happened among the officers. When she leads her troops out of the mess, she sees him leaning against a steel support beam, pulling on his gloves.

Hux looks up as she and her squad draw near. “Sergeant.”

“Major.”

“Colonel,” he corrects, hands falling to his sides. Phasma sees the new stripes on his sleeves and tips her chin in a mild allusion of respect.

“Congratulations, Colonel--did this promotion take all night?”

Hux gives her a grim smile, acknowledging her jest. “No, all morning.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she says, standing beside him and mentally counting off the pairs of troops that walk by them. “Do you plan on coming to the field again?”

“Of course; why would I stop?”

\--

One of the other colonels tells her during a morning meeting that she’s been promoted from sergeant to captain: more squads, more responsibility, but more power free from the fumbling hands of the bureaucrats. She spends the entire night with Aital, wishing the girl well on her new assignment on a visiting flagship and making her come more times than either of them can count. Tomorrow, she’ll have to look for a new squeeze, but all in good time.

She doesn’t see Hux for a few days after her promotion, and she asks one of the other colonels if he’s still alive.

“Oh, yes,” she says, coiling a blue-haired braid into a bun after officer’s PT. “He’s off trying to fix that damn oscillator. Fool’s work if you ask me.”

Phasma didn’t ask. But she admires the tortoiseshell clip in her hair, and says so, meets the woman’s gaze in the mirror before the officer looks away, blushing. 

\--

The oscillator has stabilized--that’s what Hux says in his public broadcast to the entire base. He had been splitting his time between the main base and the oscillator construction for months now--going on a year--almost to the day since he became colonel, and now it seems he’s flush with victory, taking breakfast with other up-and-coming officers and having dinner with the General. 

“Do you enjoy seeing your face on the screens in the morning?” Phasma asks him in the evening, after they’re both done for the day and sitting at their little table by the window. Hux looks tired but determined to push through it, focusing purposefully on his glass, on her glass, on the lamp outside the window, a permanent furrow in his brow.

“No,” Hux admits, “but it isn’t about me. Everyone on this base needs to know our successes as much as our failures.” He tips his head back as he takes a long drink of his whiskey. “Mutiny is expensive and time consuming. You know this.”

\--

The Knights of Ren visit the base upon orders from the Supreme Leader. The visit disrupts everything; Phasma has to direct multiple divisions to secure their convoy, and then has to parcel out her best troops to be their escorts for when they’re here. She doesn’t know what the officers do, if anything, and she doesn’t care; her week is a mess, her training disrupted, and all because of a group of rogues. 

She takes a walk to clear her head. Not a patrol - she keeps her rifle over her shoulder - but a walk. It’s the cold-but-dry season, where the snowy fields gave way to frozen ground and yellow, tough grass that frosts overnight. As dull and grey as the evening is - the sunset is only a pale yellow through the grey - the air smells crisp and clean and piney, tugging at memories too old to uncover and not worth the risk.

When she gets to the field, she sees a lone figure sitting at the edge of the risers, a vapor cloud rising from his mouth and being carried away on the wind. The red hair beneath the hat gives the man away. Phasma approaches, the grass crunching beneath her boots. 

“I thought you had stopped,” she says when Hux looks up.

“I did,” Hux says, takes another slow drag, exhales it into the breeze. “For the most part.”

“Then what’s this?”

“Extenuating circumstances.”

“Have you been waiting hand and foot on those Knights, too?”

“No.” Hux clicks the tab against the side of the cigarette holder, and the cap snuffs it out, encasing it in a polished silver thimble. “But I met the Supreme Leader.”

Phasma studies him for some sign of lying, some joke she knows Hux wouldn’t tell. “You _met_ him.”

“I met a projection of him,” Hux corrects, but he still seems unsettled by the fact, his hands shaking as he tucks the cigarette holder into his jacket. He runs a hand through his hair, and Phasma tries to remember a time when she has seen him this uncomfortable in his own skin. “The general and I went to this--chamber. He had heard about the oscillator and wanted to congratulate us on it, but then he...asked to talk with me separately.”

“Colonel,” Phasma interrupts; she knows when officers are about to let heavy words leave their tongue, and this isn’t the place, nor is it the time; they’ve been on this base too long to foul up their positions with poor decisions made in fatigue. “Perhaps it’s better if I returned you to the barracks for tonight. We can discuss your complaints with leadership tomorrow.”

“You’re right,” Hux says with a sigh, getting to his feet. “Though the complaints I have are more for these pirates we had to host - did you interact with them at all?”

Phasma tells Hux of nearly every interaction she did have with them, from the time they arrived on six ships to the moment they left on four, leaving two convoys that no department seems to want to own or accept liability for. Hux nods and asks questions as she tells him of late night revelry, off-world alcohol that is tempting her troops, violent card games, and a haughty leader with a red energy blade--Kylo Ren, they all know him--until they come to the door to Hux’s quarters safely inside the officer’s barracks. 

“Do you have any more plans for the evening?” Hux asks as he lingers in the threshold, his cheeks absurdly pink under the white light above as they warm to the central air system.

“One of the new hangar controllers from the new pilot’s division,” she deadpans. 

“Ah,” Hux glances up, recalling, then nods. “The one with the blue braid, off to the left?”

“The very one. If you’ll excuse me, Colonel.”

“General,” Hux says, and in the pause following, he smiles a little, self-satisfied. “It’s General, now.”

Phasma tilts her head. “Truly?”

“Truly. Good night, Captain; we’ll talk again tomorrow.” 

 

Phasma wakes up to her personal communication device, the one she keeps by her bedside in case her captains have any issues, beeping loudly with an incoming message. Vale, the precious blue-haired princess that she is, continues sleeping right through it, so Phasma doesn’t hesitate to reach across her and grab the device off the tabletop and answer it as she gets off the bed. “Phasma here.”

“Captain--” A voice rasps, quiet, but there’s enough of it there that Phasma recognizes Hux’s voice. She finds her trousers on the floor and starts to pull them on with one hand.

“Where are you, General?” she barks into the device. Vale stirs, rolls over, undisturbed.

“Barracks,” he says, strained through the static. “Second level, north wing, near my -- ”

“I know where it is,” she says, digging into her dresser for a fresh undershirt. “Stay where you are, and stay hidden.”

 

The blood trail is enough to find him. Even in the dim glow of the hallway lights lining the floor, she can see the sheen of droplets on the ground, the smear and spread when it caught a footprint. The drops grow bigger and bigger until she comes to the pocket doors leading into the bathroom. She punches in the code and the doors hiss aside. Water overruns one of the sinks, spilling water that spreads slowly across the floor and towards the doors and the shower stalls, where it sounds like every shower is turned on.

Her boots splash through the standing water as she carefully checks every stall, rifle pointed straight ahead, until she finds him at the end. Hux sits wedged into a corner, black, uniform pajamas soaked through under the ice-cold spray. He clutches at his right side, where blood leaks through his fingers, into the water and down the drain, dark and red and not stopping.

His head is tilted back into the corner, and he doesn’t move when he sees her, regarding her calmly, as if he’s not bleeding out. 

She reaches out to turn off the spray, not wanting any more water on her armor, and then crouches down in front Hux. His eyes are slow to follow. “I’m calling the medical team this time,” she tells him, and he gives her a slow, silent nod before she speaks into the device at her wrist.

Three minutes is the standard response time. She’s already spent five getting here. Phasma shifts to kneel, reaching out and tipping Hux’s head forward just enough to see his listless eyes, the way his lips part with shallow breaths. “What was it?” she asks.

“Vibroblade,” he rasps.

“And the assassin?”

“Dead, I believe.” Hux swallows, takes another breath. “I had my pistol.” Phasma doubts that Hux is so good a shot, or so lucky, or that pistol is strong enough to do any serious damage to an assassin with courage enough to attack a would-be General, but she doesn’t say this to him, not now. 

“Keep talking,” she says, keeping her hand cupped there at the back of his neck so he looks straight at her. “How did you wake up?”

The corner of Hux’s mouth curls up in a wicked smile. “When he stabbed me, of course.”

“And you thought to come here? Flood out the bathroom?”

“I thought I could clean out the wound, that it wasn't - that terrible - ”

“You're an idiot. Have you ever used a vibroblade? Do you know how easily it cuts?”

“I know how easily I'm bleeding out.” Hux grits his teeth, shifting his hand on his side, fingers sliding on the soaked cotton. “You told me to hide, but there was…the blood trail…”

“Of course.” She shifts closer, shoulders her rifle and reaches out to press her hand against the wound; it’s clear he’s not strong enough to keep it compressed. “Don’t stop talking. What did you have for dinner, General?”

“Rations.” His eyes close as he winces, twisting away from her hand. She keeps the pressure. “And then wine.”

“Rations? On the day you become one of our great leaders? You could have planned a more auspicious beginning,” Phasma says, and Hux manages a chuckle that turns into a cough. “Don’t laugh; talk. What else did you do this evening?”

She sees Hux’s throat bob with a slow swallow. “I sent a message to my parents on Mitvolon.”

“Secure communications?”

“Of--of course.” He shivers. Phasma tightens her grip on his neck to keep him steady.

“You wrote a dissertation to graduate from the Academy, didn’t you? All you officers have. Tell me about it. Start from the beginning.”

Hux opens his eyes; his pupils are so dilated she can barely see the green in them. “The importance of military logistics in the late Imperial era,” he whispers, and his eyes flutter as he recalls the details, “with emphasis on protection from guerilla raids…”

Phasma can hear the march of boots from down the hall, already coming so close, but she nods as he speaks, encouraging him to continue until the medical officers can take him to the base hospital.

 

One full day of recovery later, Hux asks to see her. She stands at the threshold to the room, takes in the sparse, grey decorations, the white linens, Hux sitting up against the headboard with a datapad in his lap and a broad bandage taped up against his side. “Come in, Captain,” he says, voice soft and still weaker than normal as he gestures to a chair by his bedside.

She takes a seat, takes off her helmet, and holds it in her lap. “I’m glad to see you’re recovering, General. If not resting as much as your doctors would like.”

Hux sets the datapad aside. “Yes, well, the work doesn’t stop, it merely piles on.” He shifts, just enough that he regards her completely, not having her off to his side. “I wanted to express how grateful I am for your response, the other day.” 

“It’s my job, sir.”

“No, it isn’t. You could have let me die, to be replaced with someone...someone less demanding of your time.” Phasma isn’t sure she’s seen Hux this careful around her before. Maybe it’s his injury, or whatever medicine they gave him; maybe he sees her as a threat (for no reason). “And I also remember how persistent you were to keep me conscious.”

“Battlefield training, sir, it increases your odds for survival,” she deadpans.

“I know, Captain. I’m familiar with it, too.” Hux pinches the bridge of his nose. “When I accepted this position the Supreme Leader told me that I could arrange my own security detail. In fact, he recommended I do so. Considering you are the most competent stormtrooper I know, among the few that can interface with my officers - would you like the lead position?”

Phasma turns over the possibility: stuck in a sea of bureaucrats, watching to make sure none of them pull a blaster to the heart or a knife to the back. It sounds dreadful. “I appreciate the offer, General. But no; that’s not what I’m trained for.”

“There is only so much experience you can gain on this base; do you think there is anymore, after being here for five years?” Hux asks, looking towards the window and the snow capped peaks in the distance. “When I move to the Finalizer, I’ll be visiting colonies, war zones, planets fresh to harvest for the First Order--and I want you to represent me on the battlefield. You’ll have complete autonomy over your troops; you’ll be able to craft the finest division in the fleet. You’ll sit at the table in all of my tacticals; I’ll listen. Please, Captain.”

She looks at him, no longer so slight and small, the five o’clock shadow dusting his cheeks, scars and bruises and scratches littering his torso, and still she has to remind herself that he’s still young: younger than her, certainly younger than most of the officers, dragged upward by his own ambition to a position that, now, will certainly be his death. It’s inevitable, she thinks, because there’s nowhere else he can go, and yet what a shame that would be, and what a shame to turn down the chance for her own fiefdom in space, a chance to take out the ignorant, meddling fingers of the bureaucrats from her troops and craft her own perfect, elite squadron of stormtroopers.

“Only if you’ll obey my orders if it’s for your protection, General,” she says, “or we’ll be wasting my time and yours.”

That draws a soft smile from Hux. “Have I disobeyed you yet?”

\--

Hux stands on the docking bay, flanked by two of her troops, arms crossed over his chest when she steps out to meet him. They’re set to go to the Finalizer today, and for some reason he hasn’t boarded the escort ship.

“Something wrong, sir?” she asks, coming around to see him with his arms crossed over his chest, frowning at his predecessor’s transport, a lavish chrome ship that is quite possibly as old as Hux is if the bulky wings and panels are anything to go by. 

“Is the cargo already loaded?” he asks.

“Yes, last night.”

Hux’s frown deepens, and then he shakes his head, dropping his arms. “I want this vessel scrapped after we get on board. I don’t care what you do with it, but I don’t want to be seen in this antique again.”

Phasma nods. “As you command,” she says, saving her comments about resources and his aesthetic concerns for later. “Now: if you will please board, sir, the convoys are already moving out.”

\--

She enjoys four weeks of uninterrupted control, plucking whichever stormtrooper she wants from across the entirety of the flagship to create her best division yet. She reviews the squadrons with Hux, explaining to him the tactical purposes of each, and he simply nods, and leans back in his chair, saying: “I’ll leave it to you.”

Then he tells her Kylo Ren is taking a long term position on the Finalizer. 

The first week is what bureaucrats would call rough, though it’s nothing compared to the battlefield. General Hux and Kylo Ren argue every day on the bridge for a week, and Phasma can only roll her eyes so much before she is simply annoyed. 

“Any problems?” Hux asks her during their weekly meeting, and Phasma exercises the flippancy she’s earned from years executing her orders with absolute perfection (and years covering Hux’s mistakes, less and less as he learned the correct way to order troops and deliver tactics). 

“You need to conduct your arguments with Lord Ren in private before the conflict starts to undermine your authority.”

“They’re hardly arguments.”

“You are correct: they are childish disputes and public pissing contests.”

“Captain.”

“My recommendation stands, sir.”

Hux sighs, leaning back in his chair behind his desk. “Noted. Thank you.”

–

Next week: she waits outside of Hux’s office, talking to the young secretary behind the desk and commenting on the handsome shade of her violet hair. Zena is a complete gem, a new lieutenant with an ability to hide secrets that got her this posting, but she also has an exquisite, lyrical laugh. Phasma hopes she stays longer than the last one.

The door to the office slides open, and Kylo Ren stands there. Ren looks at both of them, now suddenly silent, and then stomps off. “You might want to wait a minute or so,” Zena tells her in a soft whisper, leaning forward, “and he’ll be less hot-tempered with you.”

Phasma chuckles. “I’ve seen it before, and I’ve survived. But thank you for the concern, petal.”

\--

A month: she doubles back after a staff meeting, new information handed to her by Zena who had caught her, breathless after running across the ship. Phasma invites her to dinner and promises to give Hux the information.

She steps into the threshold to see Hux still sitting at the head of the table, but Ren has moved, now sits against the table edge right next to Hux; they talk in low tones. The way Hux’s hand twitches back when he sees Phasma tells her that his gloved hand – good with a pistol, good with a knife – was resting on Ren’s thigh. 

“A new lead on the map, sir,” she tells them.

\--

Phasma knows, by now, the loneliness of top command: the idea that no one will come join your table unless you invite them, the certainty of being able to sit alone, unaccosted, at the bar in the officer’s lounge. That’s probably the assumptions Hux is working on as he sits at the end of the bar, left alone by the bartender and a gaggle of young lieutenants at the other end.

They stare at her armor, shiny and chrome, and Phasma winks at them, making two of them blush and three of them giggle. Then she plants herself down at the bar next to Hux while the bartender fills a glass of water for her. 

Hux takes a sip from his glass: a tall pint with dark beer, tonight. “I see you’re fucking my secretary again,” he says, not looking at her.

The bartender sets the glass of water down in front of Phasma. She gives him a small nod of thanks. “I see you’re fucking your superiors again,” she says, then takes a sip, not looking at Hux.

“He isn’t my superior,” Hux snaps back at her, and Phasma laughs at the vitriol in his voice, as if she had just called him Brendol or compared him to the politicians in the capital. 

“Is that what you tell him as you’re riding his cock?”

“That is precisely what I tell him, and he understands it.”

“Well, no wonder you’ve made time for him,” Phasma says, grinning as she turns towards Hux, brooding over his pint. “Why the beer, then? Is there something more you want from him? A Knight of Ren, possibly the most selfish pirates in the galaxy?”

Hux lets out a slow breath through his nose, eyes closing for a moment. “Don’t mock me.”

“You’re leaving yourself open for it,” Phasma tells him, and reaches out to tap the bar in front of Hux until he opens his eyes again. “Be more careful.”

\--

He is not more careful: if anything, he is less, because she can hear them in the office while the doors are closed. Zena looks uncomfortable, typing away at her console, but she jumps when Phasma slams her fist against the closed doors.

There’s a pause. Seconds. The doors slide open and Kylo Ren stands there. “What is it?” he asks, voice dark and deep behind the mask.

“Lord Ren, the next time you see a need to have that sort of meeting with the General,” she starts, and of course there will be a next time, as long as Ren intrigues Hux and Hux wants whatever is under this mask, “be quieter.”

“Why do you -- “

“It’s for his protection. Ask him yourself.”

Ren stares at her for a long moment, and then the doors shut. She turns towards Zena, who blinks at her, shocked and uncertain.

“It’s part of my job, petal,” Phasma assures her. “And one lone knight won’t stop me.”

–

Phasma is the reason their shuttles are ready for evacuation, after having clawed her way out of grimy metals bin back into action. There will be an inquiry, of course. But with the personnel loss on Starkiller, her position is not in jeopardy.

On the flight back to the Finalizer, the orange glow of planetary implosion in the windows, Phasma watches her general cradle his knight’s face between gloved hands, speaking to him in hushed tones. When Hux gets up to bark his orders at the pilots, Phasma sees his hands still shaking at his sides; she sees Kylo Ren tip his head up, trying to follow with his eyes where Hux goes.

He doesn’t give one look back to where Starkiller used to be.

When the shuttle touches down in the hangar, the ramp is still opening when medical officers pour in, equipped with a stretcher, hypodermics, bindings; Ren is the worst patient, moving in all the wrong ways until Hux barks a single word above the fray: “REN.” That calms the knight down (enough, anyways, to be taken away).

At least this whole ordeal hasn’t eroded his command, but in a brief moment she sees the mask slip for a moment and a desperate exhaustion flickers across his face as he goes to follow Ren out. Phasma stops him by the shoulder at the edge of the ramp, squeezes gently when he looks up, and then releases him.

\--

She finds him sitting in the medical wing, trying to hide himself in a corner of the waiting room. He’s hunched over, elbows on his knees, hands over his face, taking slow breaths.

“General,” she says as she steps near him: a warning. Her voice makes him look up, and after a moment he straightens up in his seat, face stoic even if his eyes are bloodshot and the bags under his eyes are deep purple. Phasma pulls up a chair in front of him, so close that when she sits down their knees almost touch. “Talk to me.”

“He’s hurt.”

“I know.”

“They had to sedate him.”

“It’s for his own good.”

“Maybe.” 

“Did he hurt you?”

“No.”

“Then why do you look pained?”

Hux opens his mouth, closes it, looks aside; his hands clench in his lap. He finally says, “I don’t enjoy seeing him like this.”

“He’ll heal,” Phasma assures him.

“But I must bring him to the Supreme Leader after he’s healthy,” Hux murmurs, and furrow in his brow deepens; he looks nauseous.

“You don’t want to give him up,” Phasma asks, hazarding the half-question.

Hux doesn’t say anything, staring down at his knees. He swallows hard. “It won’t help him; he’ll come back as some other creature when Leader Snoke is done with him. I have already spent all this time adjusting, and now…” He trails off.

“You’ll forfeit him,” Phasma finishes. There’s no other choice, not if Hux wants to live; that’s what she’s here to ensure. 

“I will,” he agrees, heartsick, and runs a hand through his hair.

–

The reconditioning wing is right next to the medical wing. Visiting the reconditioning specialists is part of her morning routine, making sure her soldiers are on track if they have strayed. One morning soon after the implosion, the lift opens up on the floor and her general and his knight are standing there, Ren’s arm drawn across Hux’s shoulders and Hux’s hand around Ren’s waist. Ren makes a sound, twitches as if to pull himself away from Hux, but her general holds firm, tightening his grip and pulling Ren even closer to his own side.

“Captain,” Hux says, giving her a courteous nod as if they were about to meet in their divisional meetings.

“General. Lord Ren.” Phasma returns the polite nod. “The executive suites, I presume?”

“If you would be so generous.”

Phasma is not generous, but it is the right thing to do for the Order, lest they both crumble in an empty corridor and take down everything around them.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm also on [tumblr](http://cutequirk.tumblr.com).


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